Infrared (IR) detectors that operate at room temperature with lightweight and inexpensive materials hold unlimited potential in the military, security, and medical fields. Enhanced target acquisition, surveillance, night vision, etc. are some of the benefits that such IR detectors could provide for military and security applications.
Antennas coupled to rectifying diodes, or rectenna, are currently of research interest for their use in IR detection and solar energy conversion. Metal-insulator-metal (MIM) tunnel diodes have been investigated for use over large areas and for coupling the diodes to dipole antenna array in planar geometries. The theoretical and manufacturing aspects of square spiral nanoscale rectenna elements as electromagnetic collectors fabricated on plastic sheets has recently been explored. In another approach, transfer printing techniques that use plasma oxidized AlOx thin dielectrics were explored as a method to enable large area manufacturing of MIM diodes.
Although the concept of IR an optical rectenna was first introduced in the 1970s and was validated with limited efficiency for collection and conversion of mid IR (CO2 laser), no practical demonstration of rectification at IR or visible or solar wavelengths using rectenna has been reported. Major technical challenges include fabricating the small diode geometries required to enable operation by quantum mechanical tunneling at THz frequencies over large areas.
The emergence of nanomaterials offers significant promise in overcoming the limitations on rectenna mentioned above. In particular, CNTs have been shown to provide exceptional functional performance in nanoelectronics and sensing applications. However, numerous challenges remain both in the fundamental understanding of their transport physics and in achieving scalable and robust manufacturing methods for integrated devices.
Recently, random arrays of aligned multiwall CNTs have been shown to demonstrate antenna-like interactions with electromagnetic radiation. The multiwall CNTs exhibited both polarization and the length antenna effects that could be used in rectennas for IR and optical detection and solar harvesting applications. However, as discussed above, the ability to extract this energy efficiently through appropriate diodes remains a challenge.
There exists a need for nanostructure-based diodes that exhibit improved energy collection and conversion.
Therefore, it is an object of the invention to provide nanostructure-based diodes that exhibit improved energy collection and conversion and methods of making and using thereof.